I think I fell in love with Soufriere, this little town of 5,000 people. How could I not, when it gave me a rainbow every day?
It is tropical, which means hot and humid. So many of you, my dear friends, would hate it. The heat beats down on you, the sun literally blisters your skin (my poor right boob may never be the same!). As the clouds move in you think you are going to get a bit of a reprieve, but you donāt, because the humidity also increases, until moisture is dripping off the end of your nose while you sit. At least thatās the case in rainy season. And it is rainy. I think there has been at least one small to major downpour every day that I have been here.
You must constantly be diligent about the bugs. If you eat a mango and leave the peel on the counter for only half an hour, you will return to an infestation of ants, or little tiny bugs that I donāt know the name of. Anything open that has any moisture to it must be refrigerated virtually immediately.
The trade off for all that heat, humidity and rain is a dense, lush foliage that I find beautiful and amazing. I havenāt made it much into the rainforest, but just walking through the regular forest draws me into a reverent silence. There is not even a whisper, no leaf moves. But every leaf periodically drips from the humidity, while deep greens and vibrant yellows and bold pinks made my heart ache for their beauty. My hair looks like I just got out of the shower and all my clothes are totally soaked, but I donāt even notice. I am emboldened to go on, particularly because the area around Soufriere has no snakes.
Barefoot!
The town also beckons me. The only retail chain stores present are the banks and the gas stations. There seem to be three hardware stores for every one grocery store, and they need more grocery stores, because theyāre always jampacked and lined right up. They have ordinary things in them like eggs, cheese, ketchup and pasta, but Iāve never heard the brand names. They have some different things too.
But this was in the freezer section… 
The dominant language is Creole-being fluent in French will not help you understand it. As you walk the street and hear Soufrierians speaking to one another, you will hear Creole, not English. But the Creole rolls loudly off their tongues before they then turn and talk to the tourists in perfect English, but in such a quiet voice it is hard to hear them. There is also a bit of a drawl that one must get used to. Did you know that the word āyesā can actually be made into two syllables? āYessss-uhā. And the English sometimes makes me laugh. It took me a while to get used to the fact that, ādo you feel me?ā means ādo you understand me?ā. The most difficult place to understand the English was in the āmarketā, aka vendors on the side of the road by the main square.
I am now living in Castries, the capital and largest city on the island. I havenāt walked much of it yet, but I doubt I will have the same language experience that I had in Soufriere. My taxi driver was born and raised in Castries, and told me that he struggles to speak Creole. He said that most of the young people here in the city cannot even understand it. When his parents were growing up it was frowned upon to speak Creole, but now there is more pride in it as a national language, and he thinks in time it will even be taught in schools.
Travel by water taxi is common in Soufriere. It was three times the fun with these characters!
I met some American business men working on a construction project in Soufriere. They were upset with the lack of productivity of the workforce. But when itās +30 out and the humidity is nearing 100%, can you really blame people for not being enthused about a full eight hours of manual labor? Yes the unemployment rate is high. But that doesnāt mean you can manually force yourself to the point of total exhaustion.
Maybe thatās why I like it here-because the combination of heat and humidity sometimes leave no other option than to just sit and chill. Relaxation is forced upon me. And that may be a good thing, as Iām not very good at being chill!
As one Soufrierian put it to me, āthis is the place for maximum chill, manā.
But as we all know, I cannot just afford to sit and chill forever-I canāt afford to be retired! So what job prospects did I find in Soufriere, what did I manage to come up with in nine days?
Prior to arriving, there were two things I had committed to doing in Soufriere. I didnāt do them. Why not? Mainly because I lost my nerve. I didnāt have the self-confidence. I found every excuse in the book why it was impossible to go do them. But, maybe, also, a small part of me is thinking I donāt want to do either of those things anyway. I did discover two possible job/income opportunities. Both of them are tenuous, to say the least. But they excite me more than the jobs that I wouldāve been pursuing had I followed the course of action planned prior to my arrival in Saint Lucia.
Oh, one more thing – I broke a heart. At least thatās what my informal tour guide and beach protectorate, or in other words, my Rastitute, told me. But despite all his protestations, I do believe it was the loss of a meal ticket, not the loss of the love of his life, that had him so upset. The only real way to know would be to return to Soufriere. And I might.
Tammy Perlich Writes 